


The Box

by Silver33650



Series: Tarnished Ghosts and Polished Shadows [16]
Category: Fortnite (Video Game)
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Manipulation, Medium awareness, References to Addiction, Time Loop, Video Game Mechanics, Villain Addresses Reader, Villain Protagonist, Villainous Gloating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27815851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver33650/pseuds/Silver33650
Summary: "At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box."
Series: Tarnished Ghosts and Polished Shadows [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1923190
Kudos: 6





	The Box

Why, hello there. 

I'm sure I'm your least favorite character. The boogeyman, the villain, the antagonist at the very least. A bit rude of you to make moral judgments of me without the full story, but I'll forgive you. You, like most, have no idea what I've been trying to accomplish. 

And that's all right. It was all according to plan. Sentient beings of all sorts are easiest to manipulate when they have no information at all. That's true across all the worlds, and yours is no different than any other in that regard. Though it is delightfully unique for other reasons. (We'll get to that later.) So, let me tell you a story. 

There are other worlds out there where the ancestors of my pawns made other choices that trickled down to leading them down other paths. Where Skye was content enough with her photography business because traveling her own world was enough of an adventure for her. Where Tina inherited the family oil business from the start and found other ways to break the rules. Where Brutus opened a bar that served the best reuben on the east side and the only fights he had to take part in were the ones he had to break up between men with beer on their breath when their preferred sports team lost. Where strangers didn't give kittens experimental steroids and then throw them out on the street for bewildered passerby to rescue. Where two siblings had a perfectly normal childhood and grew up to be perfectly normal people. 

Those worlds hold no interest for me. They're boring. But rare are the worlds that figure out where I am. Worlds where one or more organizations figures out where their missing people, places, or things went. 

For example, where a certain researcher used science instead of magic the first time. Where the engineer wasn't even born. Where Ghost took risks on their missions and meddled with powers they didn't understand. Where they meant to work miracles but instead made critical mistakes. Mistakes like me. 

Where those mistakes quickly grew out of hand. Where those mistakes became monsters and unleashed a massacre that left a rather large mess. Where that monster saved its maker for last and had a great deal of fun mocking the man with the golden touch before murdering him and taking his mission as its own. But I shouldn't brag too much about my humble beginnings. My later victories are far more impressive. 

For example, can you guess who set a rock spinning through space, so carefully charted that all the worlds could see it? Aiming right at the heart of the thing I hate most, all to figure out how best to get there. It was easy once the Seven tried to nudge it off course. When they opened the cracks in reality, sneaking through was a cinch. Although there was a slight problem: all these annoying butterflies, and one of them happened to find your world. I couldn't have that, but it would take time to fix it. And on the island, time is wonderfully relative. 

You think you know how it works, I suspect. Time is just a line that you live moment by moment. It is a deficiency in your composition that creates such laughable comprehension. Perhaps, if you can, picture time as a loop. An infinite string, where a tug on one part of it inevitably shakes the rest. 

Now imagine placing a block on the string, like a little charm on a bracelet. Is it still a loop? Of course, of course. But now there's a section where it's hard to continue. That's me. Affecting every loop, all of them ever, just because I found my way in. 

(No, it's not a perfect metaphor. But you lack the capacity to comprehend any comparison more complex.)

But here's the other thing: the string is around a sphere. At first, I hated the sphere. Wanted it gone. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was useful. So I nudged the block forward, side by side, until I found the place where the Zero Point hides. 

Oh, I'm sorry. You know it as a cube rather than a block, don't you? My apologies for the confusion. Anyway, that's when we all saw the walls of the box we were in, when the butterfly kicked us out of the place it goes when it rains. Those pesky rifts started to go away then, though I still lost. But not forever, because somebody out there had another plan to take the Zero Point, and they were far more successful, to my eternal gratitude. 

They showed the Zero Point for what it really is: infinite chaos. And that, my friend, makes it something precious. Something that must be protected. Something that must be used. 

Its power was obvious, when Tilted took it for their own, by the grace of its protector. But they'd already let it another monster long ago, and it was a more devious creature than even I imagined. Enough to release the Zero Point, enough to draw the Seven back to fix it as time became tangled. All so that Ghost- admirably patient, this one in world number 92618!- could swoop in and take control. Ghost, with its all-too-familiar mastermind, intelligent enough to contact their version of the Visitor and make sure she was on their side. 

How ambitious. And how adorable. 

In that long waiting period, while the singularity writhed and reorganized the matter around it, I saw her. Saw her patronize the Seven, saw her watch the memories of the loop spin until they stabilized. Saw my chance to ask and settle this. 

_The zero point is not an object that can be tossed between foes,_ she said. _Rather, it is an idea that lies in the hearts of all souls. And like any idea, it can be summoned at will._ A rift butterfly appeared in her hand. The answer. _That's where the butterfly goes when it rains. It goes back to the nexus and waits for another stray storm._

The storm is always coming in. The storm is never coming in. It's all a matter of perspective. But you only ever have one at a time. 

Wouldn't it have been nice if Ghost knew just how far off their observations were beforehand? That's one point in time I'll keep fixed forever.

* * *

So Ghost arrived, working quickly, sending their little exploration unit. Scurrying across the island and setting up their little outposts. A science station on the beach across from the crash site. A hangar south of Holly Hedges. A communication tower southwest of Misty Meadows, a barracks north of Lazy Lake. They even had the gall to establish a base near my home. "Staging Post"? How very amusing. Staging for what, I mused dryly. 

They were a quaint little collection of souls, these explorers. A spelunker, a fisherman, a model. I matched them role for role with my own pawns, and watched them clash. Playing on their differences, letting them squabble over some sentient slurp. All the while, I was planning. Letting out the one thing that I knew Ghost wanted gone. A ploy to draw out the mastermind, to steal their greatest asset for good. To place him in checkmate forever. 

The rat was right, after all. The best way to draw out something that's hidden is with something aggressive. Like a very angry Storm King. 

In the meantime, I was able to verify what I'd suspected all along: Ghost thought they had a way to control the Zero Point. Adorable. It was no more tameable than the storm, but they would learn that the hard way. All while I found new and exciting ways to mess with the island and its players. How to use the cube to copy them. How to use ice to freeze them. How to use fire to forge them. How to use slurp to change them. How to use data to corrupt them. 

That's where you come in. You, with your screens and your menus. You, driving the loop. You, controlling the drones that steal them to use as puppets for a measly little sign. You, outside the box and seeing more than any of us. You, with insight into all the worlds. You, with enough sway to convince Them to let more characters in. You, to whom I am eternally grateful. 

I want all the pawns in the box, where they can never leave. I will always be here with them. I will not be stopped.

So come, drop on in, whether at my home or somewhere else. (I know I'm a bit out of the way, so I left you an easy way out.) Let's play my favorite game, over and over and over again. Until everyone is here, until you find no reason to leave. Until this is all there is, and will ever be. 

Only one of you gets to be the victor, but I win every time. 

**Author's Note:**

> -throws keyboard- I did it. with just over twelve hours to spare.   
> thank you so much, whether you've read them all or just a few.


End file.
